I live in an area of Houston, Texas with a lot of first generation immigrants or resident foreigners (there are consulates in the area as this is a very large and very active port city). Based on the numbers of people that I see wearing "clothing from other cultures" (I have a sari store less than a mile from my home, I see salwar kameez, African robes, Muslim head scarves on students at the local high school {DH teaches} and college {DS just started his second year}, with a very few women in full burqua & some in the long black over robes with embroidery & scarf - but with face, hands, and feet exposed (in shoes or sandals), and you may see other cultural outfits at formal dress events - one student's mother wore the most gorgeous gold embroidered sari to the December formal awards banquet - one of the few times I haven't been the one with the most formal outfit....loved it! I can't remember the names for Thai or Korean garb - but they don't get worn to school on a daily basis - the hajib scarf and one or two black over robes (don't know the name) do.

And the toilets in various stores & buildings have had soiled tissue placed in the trash can intended for used women's products, footprints on the toilet seats, and other "they aren't from around here or they wouldn't be doing that" situations.......

There are times when I wonder how long it takes to pick up the unspoken assumptions if nobody speaks up and tells anyone about "we don't NEED to put the toilet tissue in the trash can" or "please don't stand on the toilet seat - it'll break". Or don't stand on the wall hung toilets in some of the stores....I've heard of those being broken off the wall, once in a while - just haven't seen it myself (well, saw where the cubicle was boarded up while they waited for the replacement to come in & scheduled the plumber & tile worker to do the repairs). That was years ago, though - maybe over twenty years.....just can't remember where it was....maybe college? Maybe in a town with a lot of military brides from overseas.....I just don't remember right now.

I've been in countries where squat toilets are common, so it's not that I've never heard of it. However, it just seems rather odd that this is a problem where the whole class of incoming freshman needs to be spoken to.

Are there a lot of people from that particular country emigrating to your area AnnaJ? Are they all 1st generation immigrants?

We have a large number of international students from a variety of countries - I've never taught a class that does not have at least three or four international students (out of a class of 30-35). I've never heard of anyone addressing the issue with any incoming class - thought as VorFemme says above, maybe it would be beneficial.

When I was in college living in a dorm, there was one toilet seat with footprints on it, every day. Turned out, that one of the freshman was checking her outfit in the mirror every morning. It finally stopped after several complaints from the maintenance staff. And we all knew who was admiring herself every morning.

When I was in college living in a dorm, there was one toilet seat with footprints on it, every day. Turned out, that one of the freshman was checking her outfit in the mirror every morning. ...

Am I a truly horrible person for hoping that the reason it stopped happening was that one day when she was admiring herself, she slipped a little and fell in?

Somewhat off-topic: this reminds me of a joke/urban legend wherein a gaggle of schoolgirls thought it was fun to put on lipstick and leave kiss marks on the bathroom mirrors in their school. The unimpressed staff decided that the punishment would be that they'd have to clean it up. Enter the cleaner to show them how he cleaned the mirrors so they could copy: he casually dipped his mop in the toilet bowl to wet it, then wiped it thoroughly on the mirror until the lipstick marks were gone. The girls stopped kissing mirrors after seeing that.

Somewhat off-topic: this reminds me of a joke/urban legend wherein a gaggle of schoolgirls thought it was fun to put on lipstick and leave kiss marks on the bathroom mirrors in their school. The unimpressed staff decided that the punishment would be that they'd have to clean it up. Enter the cleaner to show them how he cleaned the mirrors so they could copy: he casually dipped his mop in the toilet bowl to wet it, then wiped it thoroughly on the mirror until the lipstick marks were gone. The girls stopped kissing mirrors after seeing that.

I don't know whether or not that ever really happened, but if it did, the custodian at that school was very clever indeed.

When I was in college living in a dorm, there was one toilet seat with footprints on it, every day. Turned out, that one of the freshman was checking her outfit in the mirror every morning. ...

Am I a truly horrible person for hoping that the reason it stopped happening was that one day when she was admiring herself, she slipped a little and fell in?

Somewhat off-topic: this reminds me of a joke/urban legend wherein a gaggle of schoolgirls thought it was fun to put on lipstick and leave kiss marks on the bathroom mirrors in their school. The unimpressed staff decided that the punishment would be that they'd have to clean it up. Enter the cleaner to show them how he cleaned the mirrors so they could copy: he casually dipped his mop in the toilet bowl to wet it, then wiped it thoroughly on the mirror until the lipstick marks were gone. The girls stopped kissing mirrors after seeing that.

It's not just universities. My husband used to work for a company known for its diversified workforce and shoeprints on the toilet was a common problem.

My company had the same issue. We had a large number of 1st generation immigrants working for us and it hadn't occurred to anyone that they wouldn't just know that the typical American toilet isn't intended to be stood upon.

At our sites in other world areas where the squat toilet is more prevalent, there are signs in the stalls that have "western" toilets that say they are to sat on.

And when I visited some of the other sites, I wouldn't have known to put toilet paper into the little baskets in the stalls if they hadn't had signs.

I work with some people who think just the thought of being in a men's washroom is gross as they kind of assume all men are dirty as they tough their junk to use the toilet. However, in my experience woman's washrooms can be nasty, much worse now than I remember as a child. I had to do washroom checks at my teenage job and had to do the men's too and it was always pretty clean, it was the woman's room that we found all the nasty stuff.

For the odor question a page back. I once worked with an obese woman who smelled okay generally but when she went to the washroom she had a kind of sweet BO smell. It was bad and odd at the same time and maybe her urine just had a weird smell like it happens with eating some foods. The funny thing was she placed a formal complaint that people should not be allowed to number 2 in the staff washroom but then her whatever it was smelled way worse than a number 2.

She's the second person I've heard of who actually thought (and said) that people shouldn't do #2 at work. There was a poster on craigslist many years ago who called it rude and asked people to agree with her. Nope--it is not rude to use a facility for the purpose it was designed for!

Maybe she would also like us to schedule our sweating so that we don't ever offend her nose, or schedule our meals so that our stomachs never rumble at lunchtime.